Jim Calhoun fighting second bout of skin cancer

Matt Stout

Saturday

May 31, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 31, 2008 at 10:15 AM

Jim Calhoun was genuinely excited to watch Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, where former UConn stars Richard Hamilton and Ray Allen square off again. Above all, Calhoun seemed happy and eager to keep coaching. At this point, those are no easy feats. Calhoun said Friday he is being treated for a second bout of skin cancer but intends to keep coaching the Huskies.

Jim Calhoun was apologetic Friday for a last-minute news conference.

He was his usually talkative self and smiling. He was genuinely excited to watch Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, where former UConn stars Richard Hamilton and Ray Allen squared off again.

Above all, Calhoun seemed happy and eager to keep coaching. At this point, those are no easy feats.

Calhoun said Friday he is being treated for a second bout of skin cancer but intends to keep coaching the Huskies.

Flanked by his physician, Dr. Jeffrey Spiro, during the news conference at Gampel Pavilion, Calhoun revealed he underwent surgery May 6 to remove a cancerous growth on his neck, and he will undergo precautionary radiation therapy for six weeks starting in late June.

Spiro said the 66-year-old Hall of Fame coach is cancer-free, but the treatment, which requires 25 to 30 minutes five days a week, will help assure the squamous cell cancer doesn’t return.

Calhoun had cancerous tissue removed from his cheek last year, and doctors determined it’s likely the mass -- which grew over the course of several weeks and was located just under the right side of Calhoun’s chin -- was related to the prior skin cancer.

“I want to coach basketball at UConn,” said Calhoun, entering his 23rd season as UConn coach. “I’m hopefully not going any place at this moment. I love what I do, and feel very, very comfortable in doing that.”

Calhoun was treated for prostate cancer in 2003, but Spiro said the coach’s current case is unrelated. Calhoun is expected to suffer some short-term effects from the radiation treatment, mainly fatigue, but little else past that.

“I want to stress that when all is said and done, I don’t think all of this will have any significant long-term impact on his overall quality of life and certainly on his ability to coach basketball,” Spiro said.

Calhoun said he started feeling overly fatigued toward the end of UConn’s season in March, and saw three doctors after discovering a marble-sized growth on the side of his neck.

He was originally diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection and an inflamed lymph node, but after the mass grew even larger, he visited Spiro on April 24 at the UConn Health Center, where a biopsy was performed.

The results revealed the growth was cancerous, but after undergoing further testing, no other “areas of concern” were targeted, according to a news release.

Calhoun underwent surgery less than two weeks later, where the growth, surrounding lymph nodes and an adjacent salivary gland were all removed. Six days after the surgery, he was on a plane to Oregon to participate in a golf tournament.

Still, the entire process was “very condensed and very quick,” Calhoun said, and it had its “frightening moments.”

“I’m fortunate enough quite frankly to have a great family, a job I love, something I look forward to every day, so I think I’m a very fortunate person,” he said. “That’s what I think of, and I don’t want to lose that.”

Calhoun added that retirement “never entered the picture,” and upon hearing the news, his first thoughts were with enjoying his time with wife, Pat, and his family, including his six grandchildren.

“With whatever it’s been in my lifetime, I always try to take these things and say, ‘OK, I may not be happy, I may not be optimistic, but I’m going to fight this. I’m not going to let this thing beat me,’” Calhoun said.

As Calhoun undergoes treatment, he said it won’t allow him to make it to all of his commitments this summer, and he wanted to quell any rumors surrounding his absences with the news conference.

“I look forward to coaching for a long, long time,” Calhoun said. “I’ll do like I always do (and) evaluate after every season. But I really wanted to get an opportunity to publicly let people know that I did have a little bit of setback.

“I do have one more step to go,” he later added, “but I do feel much, much better, thank God.”

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, squamous cell cancer is the second-most common form of skin cancer with more than 250,000 new cases each year in the United States. It generally is not aggressive, Spiro said.

Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, Calhoun boasts 774 wins in his 36-year coaching career.

The Huskies are expected to return their entire starting lineup from a team that went 24-9 last season and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Huskies also welcome in at least four freshmen, a recruiting class that has been touted as one of the nation’s best.

Reach Matt Stout at mstout@norwichbulletin.com

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.